China's Age of Ascendance, Ambition, and Atrophy

Abstract The news coming out of China in recent years points to cracks in an imposing structure—a gilded age gradually losing its luster. Against this backdrop, China's Age of Abundance offers a timely and authoritative account of both China's path that has led the country to its current juncture, as well as its possible future trajectory. Whereas a preponderance of writings has largely attributed China's economic growth to its cheap labor, here, drawing on meticulous data and analyses, Wang Feng powerfully argues that the driving force underlying China's remarkable rise was its good labor, made cheap under institutional arrangements that are both predicated upon and reinforcing China's profound rural-urban dichotomy. Challenging the narrative of the exceptionalism of a “China development model,” China's Age of Abundance traces China's path to an economic boom through the trails of human toils and tolls, foregrounding the individual—their agency, livelihood, and struggles—within structural and historical changes.